just after 3:00 a.m. here on the east coast and at least 16 people have reportedly been killed. more than 7 million are without power as sandy now is moving inland across pennsylvania. good morning, i'm chris jansing live in new york. we want to run down the latest development as cross the mid-atlantic and the northeast and let's start in new jersey which took the brunt of this superstorm when it came ashore. atlantic city and cape may have

been absolutely inundated with water. further north in jersey city reports of building collapses, the oyster creek nuclear plant has been put on elevated alert amid high water. in new york, all of lower manhattan below 39th street is without power. some of that caused by an explosion at a con ed substation. right now new york city is seeing more power outages than at any time in its history including two out of every three people on long island. it's also forced the evacuation of the nyu medical center after the generator there went out. further south the storm surge in battery park set an all-time record exceeding 13 feet and flooding subways, tunnels and ground zero. the head of the mass transit authority said it is the worst flooding the subways have ever seen. the financial district was also swamped. officials have announced that the stock exchange will be closed for a second day today. over in new jersey, some subway

stations are flooded. this shows you a station in hoboken. the mayor there says the city is half underwater. they tried to get in the national guard and they couldn't get in. in connecticut, the governor is urging evacuations of coastal cities from stamford to bridgeport due to floodwaters. the national guard has been put on standby to help rescue people that may be trapped in their homes there. down in maryland parts of the ocean city pier have been destroyed and water is also inundating that city. it's been rising republic beach, delaware, in dewey beach and 50,000 have been ordered to evacuate including in parts of wilmington. the ripple effect is being felt in the travel industry with 13,000 flights being canceled. laguardia, jfk and newark airports are closed indefinitely so that will rise quickly. and after a generator went out, 215 patients had to be evacuated as we said from nyu medical

center. nbc's rehema ellis is live at new york university medical center with the very latest. have they finished those evacuations now, rehema? >> reporter: as a matter of fact, chris, no, they have not. i was just at the front door of the hospital only moments ago and saw two patients being brought out on stretchers with oxygen masks on and being put into ambulances. and this is still ongoing. it's still interesting. it takes a long process to bring people who are in need of great care down from these floors of the hospital on these stretchers and into the ambulances. we have to say, it has been going very smoothly, very orderly. there's been no reports of any kind of chaotic behavior. what you see when you're at the front of the hospital is that there are only some emergency lights that are lighting up the lobby and then they have these portable generators -- >> i'm going to come back to you. i need to interrupt you because we want to show you we are getting these pictures in.

this is breezy point, queens, and we understand there are a series, a row of houses that have been on fire and you can just see the way the flames there are going and the power lines that are down. we have heard reports all throughout the region of concerns that there are fires that people cannot get to that firefighters, that rescuers cannot get to. in fact, in one case we heard of a firefighter who was trapped and had to be rescued by other emergency crews but we have this fire that is raging. this is in breezy point in queens and the last that i had seen was that there were at least four buildings involved. but certainly from these pictures it looks like it could be even broader than that. we're going to keep you posted on that. our folks in our sister station at wnbc keeping their eye on that fire for us, now, let's go back to rehema ellis as we are looking at these dramatic

pictures. i'm sorry to have interrupted you, but, rehema, continue. >> reporter: of course, chris, this is a fluid situation that we're in in our storm coverage so when something breaks we have to understand that you have got to go to it as quickly as possible. fortunately for the patients at this hospital who have had to be transported it has gone as smoothly as anyone might have hoped it would or could have hoped it would but those patients, imagine, what it must be like coming out into this situation. it is dark and the temperature is falling and so it's chilly out here and they're being placed into an ambulance and some of them may not even be aware of exactly where they're going. their loved ones may not have been able to contact them because they've had intermittent phone service so the hospital said loved ones may not know when their relative or loved one leaves the hospital here. they may not find out until they reach their destination and the hospital at this -- where they're being transported to

informs the loved ones that they are caring for someone that they care about. so it's an unsettling situation but the best thing that we can say is the hospital is taking the necessary precautions to make certain these patients can be cared for because they can't be cared for properly in this hospital which does not have any power. chris? >> rehema ellis, thank you very much for that and i've gotten a dramatic update on the situation in breezy point, queens. originally when we were told about this, it started with what looked like about four houses involved. it has now spread to 15 homes in queens. 170 first fighters called to the scene but at this point we are told just two injuries. is this new information on this? i'm just getting it handed to me so let's see if there's anything breaking on this. this is from, again, our folks -- this is from the associated press. it's a four-alarm fire. it was first reported several

hours ago and involves now 15 houses. the various areas of new york are broken into zones, this is zone a aend this is the area largely evacuated and a flooded area, as well. right now 170 firefighters on the scene and don't know exactly what caused the fire but we'll keep an eye on that situation. in new york, meantime,en con ed which is the major power provided says more than 600,000 in the city and west chester county are in the dark. 250,000 in lower manhattan lost power when a transformer expl e exploded at a substation on 14th street. bob, i know how busy you are. are these the most updated numbers? >> the most updated is 660,000 across the system that's the five boroughs and west chester and of that we've got 160,000

people without power in west chester and brings down a lot of power lines and elsewhere we have in manhattan currently 230,000 and 41,000 in the bronx, 79,000 in staten island, 70,000 in brooklyn. 78,000 in queens. >> now, i know that some of these power outages were intentional. i actually got a call at my house, a robo-call telling me about it. how many of these were necessary in terms of, for example, a transformer explosion and how many were intentionally cut? >> well, there were 6500 customers that were taken out of service in lower manhattan and the battery park and fulton networks and the battery area and that was earlier this

afternoon. those numbers, of course, skyrocketed with the explosion at the east 13th street substation. that's a spot where you have some high transmission wires coming into contact with, you know, bringing power into the substation there and we're not sure yet exactly what caused this explosion. it could be from the flooding or it could have been from flying debris. we won't know until we do a thorough investigation on that site to find out exactly what did explode and i do know it was in a mill yard from some workers that i had spoken to earlier this evening, so we'll have to see exactly what it is, but what we do know is that immediately afterward it affected multiple networks in the lower manhattan area and we lost about 250,000 people with the snap of a

finger. >> and just give us an idea of will some people be back up and have power again first thing after daylight or what's your expectations about how quickly you can start to see some turnaround in that direction? >> well, those numbers actually have fluctuated somewhat. they've dropped a little bit. they had gone under 2,000. they went back up a little bit. so this is one of those situations where our network engineers will probably be able to restore power to some of those folks sooner rather than later. those who are in the areas, though, where the substations were have been affected by floods will take a longer time to bring back at least three or four days in the instances of those stations that were -- substakeses that were taken out of service beforehand and possibly longer in some of the areas further north that were

affected by the flooding such as the one -- the substation at east 13th street. >> con ed spokesman bob mcgee talking about 660,000 in the dark in new york city and westchester county. part of the 7.1 million across this wide swath of this monster storm. we've also been watching the devastating pictures coming to us from queens and this huge fire that is raging there. let me bring in nbc meteorologist bill karins and the first thing that comes to mind is obviously the terrible conditions that these 170 firefighters must be facing as they're trying to put out this fire, bill. >> scary situation, chris. i first saw a lot of tweets on it about this on twitter and i'm afraid of what lives may have been in the way of this fire. because this was an evacuation area but on twitter there was a couple of people in these homes that were trying to figure out what to do, where to go, how to take their children out of

harm's way and it's a very narrow ribbon. i was probably at the beach in this area about three or four weeks ago, right around 130th beach street. it's a very narrow ribbon out on the rockaway, not a lot of room on either side. one side is the ocean, the other is the bay. one or two bridges reach out to this region. they had horrible flooding during the storm and they had very low water pressure for the firefighters when they arrived out there too and the winds, you can see, i mean obviously the winds are going at 50 to 60 miles per hour. you can imagine a firefighter with low water pressure trying to fight the blaze. it looks like it was two or three city blocks and, again, if you go to google maps and see what this looks like before it burned it's around 130th beach street and just obviously these homes -- they're burning to the ground and the only thing that will probably stop it is when these winds just -- reach the water and there's no more homes left to burn. just absolutely tragic conditions out there, again, that was out there breezy point

queens in the far rockaways not too far away from jfk airport which by the way we heard there was water all over that region on the runways, on all the homes out there near woodmere and cars floating on golf courses at the peak of the high tide surge. let me catch you back up with where we are with the storm. i'd say at this point at this time of the morning we've probably seen about 95 to 98% of the damage that we're going to see from the weather aspects of this storm being the wind, being the snow and also being the storm surge. the big, huge storm takes up almost a third of our country. the cloud shield goes back to chicago down to atlanta. the rain and the snow is mixed out down there in west virginia and ohio and michigan and just plain old rain all the way up through new england. as far as the wind warnings go they've been dropped in southern new england so that's good from long island northwards up to boston. it's not quite as windy but it's still going to be a gusty tuesday through the region and

there is still some bands of rain that have to go through new york city and down through atlantic city and all of the jersey shore. winds still gusting at 38 in new york and not far from where the fire was located, wind gusts of 44 miles per hour. almost impossible fire conditions for the firefighters. wilmington still gusting at 55. this is the best we've been as far as winds are concerned in about 14 hours. rainfall totals were not that high over areas of new york northwards but high to the south around washington, d.c. and look at the white on this map. the charleston, west virginia, area getting snow and friends in ohio, the cold air is wrapping in and we have snow mixing with rain even near columbus, ohio and dayton back up to toledo, so, chris, a dynamic storm and there's just going to be so many tragic tales. of course, pictures from the big fire there and just wait till sun up and get the images of the homes and on fire island crashed

to shore anywhere on the jersey shore so just heartbreak all over this storm and so many people that don't even have power and can't even see these images yet. so sad. >> it is, indeed. we're also told there is a big fire raging in old saybrook, connecticut, so with downed power lines we're maybe seeing more of this unfortunately. we've got a lot more to tell you about. we'll take a quick break but we'll talk to one of the mayors who is facing a big job tomorrow. the mayor of a town in new jersey, belmar, new jersey, when we come back. ♪ want my recipe for healthier hair color? natural instincts! formulated with aloe, vitamin and antioxidants natural instincts has a system that's a healthier way to radiant color. indulge... with natural instincts. less guilt, more gorgeous.

these dramatic pictures from queens where we have at least 15 homes on fire, an area that was flooded. you can see all the power lines there. a fire department spokesman says 170 firefighters are currently on scene. two people have suffered minor injuries and live pictures, as well, from old saybrook, connecticut, this is another town along the shore. you can see the fire that is raging there. part of the difficulty in a lot of these places has just been get getting firefighters to the scene because there are so many power lines down and the outline of what is left of a home in old saybrook, connecticut. also, major problems in new jersey and i want to bring in matt doherty, the mayor of belmar, a town along the jersey shore. what is the situation in your town tonight, mr. mayor.

>> you know, we did our very best to prepare for this storm, and now the current situation is that we are rescuing people who did not heed the mandatory evacuation. we're using our fire department, first aid and water rescue teams to get them out of houses and bring them to shelters and safety. >> i had seen a report and maybe it was even on your twitter feed, mayor, that they were actually swimming to some people's homes in order to rescue them? >> yes. we employed swimmers and also wave runners to transport people from their homes to safety. >> have they been able to get everyone out safely? any injuries reported? >> none reported and they're doing an outstanding job getting those families that did remain and we're just hoping for the best when we wake up tomorrow morning and are able to get to some of the homes hopefully

everyone did get out or we got them and we don't find anyone left behind. >> obviously the concern for life is the most important, but you also have a beautiful beach community with a boardwalk. what are you expecting to see when you get up in the morning, mayor? >> unfortunately, some of the images we saw tonight were devastating, a large part of our boardwalk was just completely destroyed. it no longer exists. we're going to start to turn to a phase of just cleaning up for the next couple of days and we'll start to go into a phase of repair immediately after that. we are a short community. we're a very popular one in jersey shore. it's something we're going to have to do moving forward. >> we know that new jersey has been hard hit by the power

outages, 912,000 plus, pse&g, a million, atlantic city electric, 201,000. when is the power situation in belmar tonight? >> we have none. the entire town is black and dark. we have no power whatsoever. there's downed trees on just about every street and they took down wires with them. so that also adds to the complication when we do go out and try to find these families in their homes. >> and what is your best advice to folks when they wake up tomorrow morning, if they're able to get any sleep tonight in belmar? >> just thank god that you are waking up and make sure your family is safe, secure and contact the authorities if you need our help. >> well, mayor matthew doherty of belmar, new jersey, thank you so much for taking the time and our thoughts are with you and good luck. >> we appreciate it. have a great night. >> and before we go to break take a look at this.

with the massive storm approaching last night, monday night, jimmy fallon and david letterman had to take their shows without studio audiences. fallon did his monologue before one single guy telling people at home to imagine laughter, fun and excitement. he did, however, manage to come up with a full lineup of guests.

this storm is having a huge impact on the presidential race

and we are now just one week before election day. the president is off the campaign trail. he is monitoring the storm from the white house doing his job as both commander in chief and chief executive. >> we have pre-positioned assets so that fema personnel are working closely with state and local governments. we're making sure that food and water and emergency generation is available for those communities that are going to be hardest hit. transportation is going to be tied up for a long time and probably the most significant impact for a lot of people in addition to flooding is going to be getting power back on. the fact is a lot of these emergency crews will not be able to get into position to start restoring power until some of these winds have died down. >> one of the events that the president skipped was this ohio rally with bill clinton where vice president joe biden stood in for him. >> folks, i know you're expecting the real president, the present president, reverend,

i just want you to know, he asked me to express his regrets for not being able to be here but, you know, he's doing the job a president should be doing. [ cheers and applause ] and first and foremost on behalf of the president, i want to thank all the first responders throughout this country. you know, there are folks from all over america heading to my part of the world to the east coast to help now. they're coming from all over. >> well, mitt romney and paul ryan have canceled all of their campaign events tomorrow and at their last event in ohio romney asked people to help if they can. >> i want to mention that our hearts and prayers are with all the people in the storm's path. sandy is another devastating hurricane by all accounts and a lot of people are going to be facing some real tough times as a result of sandy's fury and so if you have the capacity to make

a donation to american red cross, you can go online and do that. if there are other ways you can help, please take advantage of them because there will be a lot of people looking for help and the people of ohio have big heart, so we're expecting you to follow through and help out. >> well, we know early voting was canceled yesterday in maryland and power outages will certainly cause more problems for early voting but what about an actual delay of election day. it could happen. let's go to pete williams, nbc justice correspondent, but, pete, really? >> it could but it probably won't and, you know, today, chris, the president's spokesman jay carney, the white house spokesman was asked in a small group of reporters whether the president has the authority to postpone an election and he said, jay carney said, well, i'll have to get back to you. no, he doesn't much the president has no such authority, nothing in federal law or the constitution gives any single

person the power to postpone a vote for president of the united states. now, congress does have the authority to set the date for presidential elections. the constitution gives the authority to congress and congress has done that. the first tuesday after the first monday in november. it's been that way since the 18 -- roughly 1845. but there is no independent authority other than that to change the date for an election. so a state official, for example, probably couldn't say we're going to hold the elections two days from when they were scheduled. that would cause a problem with whether that state had done the right thing in choosing its presidential electors. congress could certainly change the date. if there's concern about the date for the presidential election with all the disruption from this storm, congress could hustle back into town and change the date. but that might not go down very well with all the states that weren't affected by the storm. not only that, chris, many states don't really have very good procedures for delaying,

postponing, suspending, making changes to the elections in their states, so, yes, it could be done but it probably won't be and, in fact, it never has been done with all the natural disasters and including the civil war, never has an election for president of the united states been delayed or postponed. >> pete williams in a very early tuesday morning in our d.c. bureau, thank you very much for that update. >> you bet. >> we have been telling you about several fires that are raging right now. big one in old saybrook, connecticut. amanda rouse of wvit reported moments ago from the scene. >> reporter: the old saybrook fire department put out a press release telling us what happened there. they say they have two homes in chocker beach that have been destroyed by the fire during hurricane sandy because the fire department just wasn't able to get there. they actually did go into -- in water rescue suits and rode on a retired army deuce and a half

truck converted into a brush fire truck as they say in an attempt to remove anyone who ignored the mandatory evacuation order and were in danger at the fire, but as they were going in, that vehicle lost many electrical systems and it could not go any further. it couldn't go because there were so many different feet of water in the beach area. two homes we are told have been destroyed in fire. as you can see looking live there is still fire going on at chocker beach there and firefighters still not able to get there because the roads are just impassable. again, they tried in an attempt to make sure that no one who may have just, you know, disregarded the orders of old saybrook, the governor as you said in the state there was endangered but we're waiting until someone can get over there and start extinguishing those flames and really there's no way to tell exactly when that will be because we don't know when all

that water will recede. >> that was amanda raus from wvit and that's the situation we've been hearing over and over. how difficult it is for rescuers to get to the scene of some of those problems, that fire in old saybrook and showing you the pictures of what's going on in the rockaways in queens. there are 170 firefighters on the scene there but they have not been able to keep the fire from spreading to 15 different buildings in the breezy point section of the rockaway peninsula. this fire started about 11:00 last night. still going on. the cause of the fire will be under investigation once the smoke clears but this is an ongoing situation. so far, though, no injuries reported.

the big question all across the path of sandy is what will people find when the sun finally comes up this morning? we know in new york city there

has already been widespread devastation. we've told you about the record number of power outages. a storm surge of almost 14 feet in lower manhattan. we should say that the new york stock exchange is going to be closed again on tuesday, although they have denied reports that the actual stock trading floor had flooded. there were incredible numbers of 911 calls and told people to back off unless it was a true emergency. part of the problem was that they had to get a lot of cars off the road last evening so that emergency vehicles could get through and then, of course, you have the major problem of transportation. flooding in the new york city subway system unlike ever seen in more than its 100-year history. following this for us has been michelle franzen in battery park city on the lower tip of manhattan and as we said, the storm surge down there nearly 14

feet. michelle, what can you tell us. >> reporter: we watched water come in during high tide and it came in very rapidly. just a sign of what all of the southern tip of manhattan was experiencing at that time. as you mentioned that historic flood marker now nearly 14 feet that will go down in the record books and what we don't see underground that i think we're going to need to deal with obviously in the morning as crews, you know, dealing with everything that's going on now, but when daylight hits there's going to be a lot of people that will be curious to go outside in their neighborhoods and they're going to want to take a look around and those sustained wind, again, i've been mentioning all night, they're with us. they're staying with us and they're just going to continue through tomorrow from what we're told, from what forecasters are telling us so it's still going to be a pretty, pretty dangerous time to be out in the streets and with the officials and crews

milling about and not even knowing what all the dangers are at that time it's going to be an interesting morning. we also, chris, have to deal with another high tide that's starting to come in. not expected to be anything near like it was last night, but with the water, you know, still very high and with a lot of the subway systems and tunnels already filled with some water, it certainly can't help with another high tide and the storm still sticking around. residents here in this neighborhood, many of them evacuated under that mandatory evacuation, but we still see some of the lights on, whether it's generator power or it's con ed, the power utility decided not to cut power in all areas so there's a lot going on here. tomorrow morning that we'll once daylight hits, i think we'll see more of the damage that obviously you guys are getting a view of, as well, tonight all around new york, new jersey

area. >> michelle franzen, thank you very much for that update from lower manhattan. let's go to nbc meteorologist bill karins and i don't know if you know this off the top of your head but meaning to ask what time is sun up? >> it's still pretty cloudy. it may not be until about 7:30 or so if, you know, with the clouds, if we get some breaks maybe it will help but definitely after the 7:00, more or less closer to the 8:00 hour. there's two things i'm curious about today, one is when we get the helicopter up there over all of the jersey shore back up through coastal long island, i want to see what those pictures look like and just how bad the storm was. the second thing is that press conference from the mta, the transit authority in new york city, when they have that today, that's going to be very interesting to the future development and the comfort level of a lot of people in new york city, all the east river subway is flooded. that's what connects queens and brooklyn to manhattan and

manhattan where a lot of us work, i live in brooklyn, that's how my family gets back and forth in manhattan. if that is shut down for an extended period of time it's going to cause huge headaches. people won't be able to get to work and make a living and an earning. huge issue and huge problems and sent that press release out saying it's a 108-year-old system and the worst thing it's happened to it in over 108 years. that wasn't a good sign of what they're about to tell us later on today but we'll find out. as far as the storm goes, historic in two aspects. it was exactly as we thought it would play out. the power outages from the wind damage, i think we're up to almost 7 to 8 million people and then with the amount and volume of water that was pushed to the coast at this very unusual approach of a hurricane into new jersey which is very rarely if never happened before and those storm surges, the two of them, it was the one we went through monday early morning which kind

of surprised us higher than we thought, water in the streets in atlantic city and the storm surge last night around 8:00 p.m. that was the devastating -- that was the historic one and that was the one that just sent people fleeing and all different directions, so what we have to deal with now is a lingering storm, a weakening storm. we should be able to get things back up and running. areas that weren't horribly affected by the two elements, the wind or the surge yesterday. the winds will slowly begin to die down during the day. the rain will begin to lighten. it's still wet out there but not as heavy as it was, still areas of rain no matter what you do and the winds, they should be coming down now at 38 in new york, 28 in atlantic city, the winds today will be more like what this region dealt with as we went through sunday so maybe if we're lucky the power crews can get out this afternoon and start what is going to be one of the biggest restoration projects in the history of our country. we're talking as many people without power as going back to katrina and crazy storms like that and just amazing and i mean

we weren't kidding when we were saying five to seven days, may be two weeks for some people and i know everyone went to the grocery stores and grabbed whatever they could. the way i've seen it, it plays out, the first day is interesting. you don't have power. the second day you start to get a little annoyed as you have no more ice and things start to go bad, day three, four and five, people just start getting angry and it's not fun and it gets ugly in a hurry. >> let me ask you just really quickly because the storm is continuing to move and i got this update on the potential impact in the midwest. chicago lake shore flood warning, high winds in indiana, extreme high winds in northwest ohio. >> damage in cleveland yesterday. >> 23,000 without power in michigan. a village in wisconsin. evacuated at least partially due to sandy. how long are we going to continue to feel the effects of sandy. >> a little bit in those areas but not as bad as yesterday and people saying lake erie was at

the highest levels of off of cleveland they've ever seen and people that lived on the lake for 80 years that it was the most ferocious and rough they've ever seen it and, yeah, it's crippling -- i mean and now it's snowing this morning with 50-mile-per-hour winds in ohio, ohio, the storm came on shore in new jersey, it's one for the record books and i'm sure i'll never seen one like this again. >> a lot are talking about the political implications of the storm which we will talk much more about, yeah, tomorrow. bill, thank you so much and bill is continuing to be with us throughout these early morning hours and we've talked about widespread flooding and so many states. wnbc's brent gigg rchl ichlging >> reporter: we're in a hotel lobby stranded.

before high tide the water came gushing in. let me give you a little light. this is what our lobby looks like. there is just garbage everywhere. i'm sure it is similar to what you're seeing in some of your homes right now. even at places you're saying trying to weather out the storm. we're doing the same in jersey. you can see how high the water is in the lobby of the hotel. we're taking refuge on the second floor but the reason why is because the water seems to only be creeping up. i want to open the door. it's very windy out so bear with me and there's a lot of water but this is what the front steps of the hotel look like. that is a parking sign and water continues to gush through. shine a little bit of light. but this is the entire look of what seaside heights looks like now. every street is flooded just like this. as i said it's been like this since 7:30 last night.

the wind is blowing not as strong as we were seeing overnight but still a major concern here. we're not going anywhere. our truck is pretty much submerged as is any other vehicle we have and we also know that any way off the island is really impossible not only because of our doorstep but because of power lines down at the entrance and exits to all the bridges. we wanted to tell you that we used a generator. we had it on the first floor of the hotel and the water came rushing in and thank god too the people who are running this hotel and our two photographers that are here with me, they were able to bring that generator up to the second floor and we were able to string it outside to a safe place so we do have some power on the second floor. that's how we're able to give you these reports. it's pretty dire situation at this point. we only have that generator gas for so long and to be honest we have no way of getting any food but we are stocked up with some food and water at this point but i'm sure many of you are going

through this right now but this is what we're experiencing right now at seaside heights. i'm brynn gingras. >> thanks, brynn. joining me on the phone is steven mays with the salvation army's emergency response division in manhattan. it's good to talk to you. what is your first order of business? >> chris, it's a pleasure with you this morning. our first order of business yesterday as the storm rolled in was to secure own our personnel and hunker through the storm like everybody else but we began receiving requests to handle the feeding piece at various shelters throughout long island in the midhudson valley and even to orange county and we parted with the red cross in several of these locations just to support with food. our local centers are prepared to produce food and that's an easy piece for us to fit and so

last night we started to do that work but then, you know, we tried to hunker down and be as safe as we could, what the responders do their work but we are fulling expecting like everybody else to have a lot of work come our way when the lights come up this morning as people had -- as the storm passes and people can return home. we're fully expecting to feed countless people today and as they head back home we're fully expecting that we're going to meet many at their homes with cleanup kits to give them any emotional and spiritual support we can as they move back into neighborhoods that have been devastated. >> how extensive is your network in the new york city area? >> we have 39 what we call community centers and that's just the greater new york area so the five boroughs, both countiy ies in long island and midhudson and the orange and rockland county and surround

greater new york and we also have some shelters and other buildings and have probably 50 locations in the area that we can utilize in these situations to kind of reach out on a local level to many different communities. >> stephen mayes with the salvation army. as you say you'll have a lot of work ahead of you. good luck in the coming days. thanks for all you do. >> thank you very much. >> we have a pretty dramatic update on that fire we've been showing you in breezy point, queens. we are now told 50, that's 5-0, 50 homes were involved in this four-alarm blaze. it started around 11:00 last night, monday night. we are originally reported four then 15, now we are told 50 homes involved. 170 firefighters on scene. just minor injuries reported so far. we'll keep you updated as we get more information. we'll continue our coverage on msnbc. .

we've been showing you pictures of fires that have been raging in the path of the storm and one of them in old saybrook, connecticut. let me bring in congressman joe courtney whose district includes old saybrook. congressman, good morning to you. what do you know about let's start with that fire and the danger it poses. >> well, again, i spent a pretty good portion of the day yesterday along the shoreline. i was not in old saybrook but the next town over. the wind that was coming in from -- at eastern long island sound was i think a lot higher than people were predicting or expecting and, you know, the flooding as a result was a lot more acute than people expected ands that take really where i think it probably was pretty scary as far as the fire trucks not being able to get in there. i mean it sounds like keith dunn

was unable to get close to the homes and hopefully the evacuated. that was the message. the line was, at some point people are going to be cut off. i mean, because just the wins were coming in -- higher than people were expecting and high tide, you know, we'll say around midnight all along the shore there, it was a really toxic combination. >> and i know that there are some towns that have had extensive flooding. the small town of westbrook which the town itself is a ways away from the water but i'm told that the town itself was flooded. eye know we keep talking about we're waiting for sunlight in three or four hours to really get a sense of the damage but in your district do you have a sense of it, congressman? >> last night what we werehearing in stonington where there's no break water that

protects and shelters that area there, it was pretty bad. the flooding was coming in. the flooding actually came in in the early high tide in the morning where, you know, the wind s weren't that high so thi is going to be a tough day for those towns and, you know, the power outages were much more concentrated. again, i think than people expected so cl&p will have their work cut out for them? >> astonishing. you got hit pretty hard a year ago and facing it again. are you confident with the kind of resources that you have both on a state, a local level and with the support of fema and the federal government that you can get things up and running as quickly as humanly possible given the circumstances? >> well, the one lesson they learned this time that appears to be, you know, what in execution is that they put a lot more people on the ground. you know, i was with the vice

president at the light and power company and they know that they're under a microscope in terms of performing better. personally i feel we have to look at how fragile the system is. this is actually the third storm in 14 months where hundreds of thousands of people in this state have been crippled and, you know, comparatively speaking in terms of our neighbors, it just seems really disproportionate and you know these systems just seem to go down awfully fast and, you know, it's a big investment. it involves, you know, a big sea change in terms of how we structure our power lines, but, you know, this is really starting to become a real problem for the state's economy when everything goes down for long periods of time. i mean thissing looks like days for restoration at this point with those kind of numbers. >> congressman joe courtney with

what looks to be a dire situation potentially in connecticut but we thank you for talking to us and good luck in the coming days. to all the folks there -- >> thanks, chris. >> the storm killed at least one person in the washington, d.c. area and i want to bring in melissa mollett for wrc. she is in alexandria, virginia. what is the situation where you are, melissa? >> good morning, you can see this area where we are is a neighborhood into alexandria outside washington, d.c. and it is completely dark. we were looking around driving around looking for damage trying to see what was going on in the area. you can see this entire neighborhood is dark. the power out here. take a look at this. several trees in this neighborhood completely snapped and down. now, the good news is crews were truly able to cut up trees like the one here behind me. a massive -- >> and we obviously have lost the pow story alex andr drandri

virginia, widespread damage as we heard from the congressman hitting them harder. we'll take a quick break and come back with more continuing coverage of the superstorm sandy on msnbc. what's next? he's going to apply testosterone to his underarm. axiron, the only underarm treatment for low t, can restore testosterone levels back to normal in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18. axiron can transfer to others through direct contact.